Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion MQA - Related technology, products and music MQA listening impressions (with a MQA decoder)

Happy to hear your future comments re Prime as source, as I am contemplating this route.

Aix is definitely protecting his previous investment and I would expect this until he has no choice, but to follow the MQA seismic paradigm shift.

Hector

I'm slowly reading through the "MQA at CES" thread on CA now. It's a tough one, because there are mistakes. Also Jussi (developer of HQPlayer who posts as Miska and knows a LOT about DSP) knows a lot more about DSP filters than me. However, I think he has made a mistake in assuming that MQA uses the same apodizing tech as Meridian's previous filter. More later...

Three pages in and I've lost the will to carry on. Some thoughts:

1. Jussi/Miska is doing some really cool stuff with HQPlayer, particularly with regard to very high frequency up-sampling matched to the DACs; but he's not grasped the essence and significance of MQA. [He does have a vested interest (HQPlayer), but I'm not sure if he is financially driven or not; I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.]

2. Folk are latching on to *any* statement in order to back up their naysayer non-sequitur arguments. For example, because one of the 2L albums was originally recorded in 44.1/16, that must clearly imply that MQA is all about up-sampling standard rate audio. (We know from Bob that MQA works with PCM masters up to at least 384k if not 768k, analogue masters, and DSD masters.)

3. We do have a problem with the current, and no doubt future, non-availability of CD and non-MQA "HiRes" material produced from the *identical* master. Comparisons may simply not be possible. Whether it matters or not depends on your POV. Personally, I think that it would be very helpful to have comparisons.

4. Tying together the ADC and DAC is mentioned, but everyone is downplaying the significance of this. From a couple of tidbits I've heard, I have an inkling that this is going to be most critical for the flawed, but very characterizable, ADCs used in the early days of digital recordings.

5. The opinions of those on the Computer Audiophile forum really won't matter at the end of the day. As Prof. Brian Cox has so elegantly and (IMO) correctly put it:
Hear hear! I enjoy - as an academic exercise - understanding what is going on technically, but many of the details are beyond me (and most people). For me, it's now more about the music than ever before.

Keep going, mere mortals trust you and depend on your evaluations.

Love the Brian Cox quote

Hector

I have heard decoded MQA on a few occasions now and I am a firm believer. In fact, I think that undecoded MQA played on decent machines is a worthwhile advance in its own right.

However, I do have some concerns about whether the bulk conversion of existing catalogues will be carried out with sufficient thought or care. When we read that TIDAL is converting its 30 million tracks to MQA, what exactly does that mean? Presumably that represents something in the order of 3 million albums, which is an impractical number for recording engineers or artists to “authenticate”. Are we really expecting TIDAL to go back to the high res masters to do all of these conversions, tweaking each one for the original ADC?

Personally I can see the advantages to TIDAL of using MQA mainly as a file compression technique, but I can also see the concerns some subscribers may have if TIDAL cease streaming in 16/44 FLAC and replace everything with MQA.

I had forgotten how nasty audiophile forums could be, especially the descent into patronisation and ad hominum attacks. Simply trying to explain what the objectives and block-level mechanisms of MQA are is impossible.

I now understand that "it would take about a week of hacking in something like Matlab to come up with a prototype of an encoder/decoder", that MQA will be reverse engineered and an open-source version will allow anyone to exploit it, and that some-one will crack the encryption (sic)and everyone will need s/w updates to load the new keys.

Of course no-one has actually listened to an MQA demonstration and come to a subjective or objective conclusion on whether it is any good.

+1

I was under the impression that TIDAL (like all other streaming providers) gets its files from distributors like 7digital. I would be very surprised if TIDAL is reprocessing these files itself. I hope and expect that the big labels have been busy for a while setting up MQA conversion pipelines. However, the key question is how many albums are going to get the white glove treatment. It is certainly possible - as you have suggested - that, in the interim at least, >CD files will be delivered via MQA encapsulation sans ADC/DAC compensation etc.

Another take on a CES listening session with, among others, Peter McGrath. This one from Stereophile

Soundserge

This video interview by Peter Breuninger has David Robinson from Positive Feedback unhelpfully summarizing MQA as "aimed mainly at improving streaming" and (quad) DSD as the "holy grail" and the "thing itself".

This whole launch has been mismanaged... Biggish fanfare, no product or demo, no actual understanding of what it does and what it will cost among potential end users.

Nasty words like licensing fees, DRC, moneymaking, re release all being bandied about... Dead silence from Meridian quashing perceived negatives

Personally, I'm pretty keen to hear MQA so long as it's not gonna cost me .. a freebie for the end user is what will kick start it.

Hey Rodney, no offence but maybe you should offer your services to MQA

Cheers!